The Dinner Table Challenge

Every module in the Product Management course ends with one question to ask someone at home. Here are all 24 on one printable. They work on a parent, a grandparent or a roommate, and the answers are usually better than you’d guess.

1. 1. Somebody Built That

   Pick one app on your phone and ask someone at home: who do you think decided that button goes there, and what do you think they were worried about?

2. 2. Four Ways It Can Fail

   Ask someone at home about a thing they bought and stopped using. Then figure out together which of the four it was: they didn’t need it, they couldn’t work it, it didn’t work, or it cost too much to keep.

3. 3. Shipping Isn’t Winning

   Ask someone at home about a project at their work that shipped and got celebrated. Then ask what actually changed afterwards. See how long the second answer takes.

4. 4. Missionaries, Not Mercenaries

   Ask someone at home whether the team they work on gets handed problems or handed tasks. Then ask which they’d rather have, and why. The answer is usually not the one they expected to give.

5. 5. Three Jobs, One Table

   Ask someone at home to describe a project at work that got passed from person to person. Ask what got lost between the handoffs. There is always something.

6. 6. Problems to Solve, Not Features to Build

   Ask someone at home what their team’s goal is this quarter. If the answer is a thing to finish, ask what would be different once it’s finished. Keep asking until you get a number.

7. 7. No Facts Inside the Building

   Ask someone at home about the last time they were annoyed by an app or a store. Don’t ask what they’d want instead. Just ask what happened, step by step. See how much you learn without asking for a single idea.

8. 8. The Job the Milkshake Does

   Ask someone at home why they drink their morning coffee. Not what brand. Why. Keep asking until the answer stops being about coffee. It usually stops being about coffee.

9. 9. Numbers That Matter (and Ones That Flatter)

   Ask someone at home for a number their workplace celebrates. Then ask: could that number go up while the business got worse? Watch how long it takes them to answer.

10. 10. Your Brain Is Lying to You

    Ask someone at home about a project they finished late. Then ask how long they thought it would take when they started. Then ask whether the last three projects went the same way. Watch the pattern show up.

11. 11. Frame It Before You Build It

    Ask someone at home about a time their boss handed them an idea. Ask what problem the boss was trying to solve. If they say “I never found out,” you’ve found the lesson.

12. 12. The Tree of Options

    Ask someone at home about a problem at work that has one “obvious” fix everyone talks about. Then ask them to name three other things that could also help. Watch how fast the obvious fix stops looking obvious.

13. 13. Map the Story

    Ask someone at home to describe a morning routine step by step, left to right. Then ask which steps could be skipped and the morning would still work. That line between “can’t skip” and “nice” is a story map.

14. 14. Fake It Before You Make It

    Ask someone at home what they’d want to know before spending real money on a big purchase, and what the cheapest way to find out would be. Then point out that’s a prototype.

15. 15. Would They Even Use It?

    Ask someone at home to name something they said they liked and never used again. Then ask what they would have had to give up to actually use it. That gap is what this module is about.

16. 16. Fake Doors and Landing Pages

    Ask someone at home to name a thing a company announced and then never made. Then ask: what if that announcement was the test, and the answer was no?

17. 17. Running a Fair Test

    Ask someone at home about a time they changed something and it “worked.” Ask what else changed at the same time. See whether the win survives the question.

18. 18. Will It Work for the Business?

    Ask someone at home to name a project at work that customers wanted and the company killed. Then ask who killed it and why. The answer is almost always money, a rule, or someone who wasn’t asked.

19. 19. Product-Market Fit

    Ask someone at home: what’s one product you’d be truly upset to lose tomorrow, and what’s one you wouldn’t notice? Ask what the difference is. That difference is fit.

20. 20. Strategy Is Saying No

    Ask someone at home what their team is focused on this year. Then ask what they’ve decided not to do because of it. If the second answer is “nothing,” the first answer isn’t a strategy.

21. 21. Vision, and the Story You Tell

    Ask someone at home what their company is trying to become. If they answer with a sentence, ask where they heard it. If they answer with a shrug, that company has a slogan and no vision.

22. 22. Habits, Growth and Getting Disrupted

    Ask someone at home to name a product they use every day without thinking about it. Then ask when it became a habit, and what made them keep coming back at the start. That story is the loop in this module.

23. 23. Building With AI Inside

    Ask someone at home about a time an app recommended something wrong for them. Then ask how they’d feel if it had been a medicine dose instead of a movie. That gap is this whole module.

24. 24. Your Turn: Ship Something

    Ask someone at home to name a problem they deal with every week that nobody seems to own. Then ask what the smallest test of a fix would be. Then ask if they’d do it with you.

From Product Management, a course for curious teens in five-minute lessons. pettigrewlab.com/learn/product-management